Businesses aren't the ones who are paying for that subsidy, so from a business perspective the fact that you are using a subsidy is irrelevant.
From a society perspective, the fact that switching to electric trucks saves a business $160k over its 6-year lifespan with a $325k subsidy shows that the subsidies can probably be lowered to $165k already - with the remaining purchase price gap probably better covered by something like a low-interest loan.
In a larger context, this pricing is before mass-manufacturing of electric semi trucks has properly scaled up yet, and it isn't yet accounting for the ~203 tonnes of CO2 which aren't being emitted over those 6 years which should probably be taxed.
I agree that skipping over the subsidy for a quick headline is irresponsible, but altogether the gap between diesel and EV has been shrinking quite significantly. It makes me cautiously optimistic that in the next decade we will start seeing mass adoption of EV trucks purely for economic reasons.
Did they just skip over the £325k of subsidy?
It makes sense to do that, clean air, and build up a market for the vehicles, but just to gloss over it is rather tedious.
Businesses aren't the ones who are paying for that subsidy, so from a business perspective the fact that you are using a subsidy is irrelevant.
From a society perspective, the fact that switching to electric trucks saves a business $160k over its 6-year lifespan with a $325k subsidy shows that the subsidies can probably be lowered to $165k already - with the remaining purchase price gap probably better covered by something like a low-interest loan.
In a larger context, this pricing is before mass-manufacturing of electric semi trucks has properly scaled up yet, and it isn't yet accounting for the ~203 tonnes of CO2 which aren't being emitted over those 6 years which should probably be taxed.
I agree that skipping over the subsidy for a quick headline is irresponsible, but altogether the gap between diesel and EV has been shrinking quite significantly. It makes me cautiously optimistic that in the next decade we will start seeing mass adoption of EV trucks purely for economic reasons.